Airport Survey May Face Delays

Daytona Group Wants To Question Travelers

DAYTONA BEACH — No one on a Volusia County airport strike force questions the need to ask frequent fliers why they don't like to travel from Daytona Beach.

So the group plans a telephone survey of 750 to 850 people in Volusia and three neighboring counties that is expected to cost about $20,000, strike force members said Monday.

The question is this: Where does the panel get the money to pay for it?

Several members of the county's strike force met Monday in a conference room at The News-Journal in Daytona Beach. They talked about getting estimates from three polling companies and then taking the lowest figure to the Volusia County Council.

Contacted after the meeting, county officials said getting the estimates might be improper. The officials also said they have instructed group members to stop meeting privately because they are subject to the state's open-meetings law.

County Attorney Dan Eckert said the strike force may be required to solicit bids - a process that could delay the survey project weeks or even months.

''That's an issue we're reviewing,'' Eckert said Monday.

The question arose at least in part because the strike force had been operating as though it were a private organization.

County Manager Larry Arrington created the group this summer after US Airways said it would end service to Daytona Beach International. The carrier's last flight was Sept. 3.

Arrington called on George Mirabal, president of the Daytona Beach & Halifax Area Chamber of Commerce, to chair the panel.

Mirabal said he opened the strike force to anyone interested in the airport.

In the past few months, the strike force has been divided into eight subcommittees, including one assigned to review proposals from carriers interested in flying to and from Daytona Beach International.

As recently as Sept. 22, Mirabal maintained that the strike force was a private group that did not have to disclose its activities to the public.

''We're not a public body,'' he said. ''The County Council never voted us into existence. We don't report to anybody.''

As such, the strike force could choose a survey company any way it wanted, Mirabal said.

But subsequently, Eckert's office said the group was, in fact, a public agency and that it must conduct its business in the open.

Aside from the possibility that the strike force might now have to seek bids for the survey, the county attorney's decision will have little effect on the panel, Mirabal said Monday.

''We're not going to skip a beat,'' he said.

The strike force's research subcommittee had contacted two polling companies about conducting the survey: Interviewing Services of America, based in Los Angeles, and Minnesota Opinion Research Inc., based in Minneapolis.

It rejected an offer from Stetson University in DeLand because the school might be unknown to airline officials, said Kathy Coughlin, a strike force member who is advertising director at The News-Journal.

Coughlin said someone in the newspaper's marketing department drafted a set of questions for the phone survey. The newspaper's marketing director would prepare a report for county government based on the survey results, Coughlin said.

The survey is not expected to turn up anything county officials don't already know, ''but it helps if the survey is current and done by a reliable company,'' said Craig Jackson, air service development director at Daytona Beach International.

Airlines might dismiss the survey results unless the polling is conducted by a nationally known company, Jackson said.

The survey would ask why many business and leisure travelers prefer to fly from Orlando International Airport instead of Daytona Beach International, strike force documents show.

It also would ask fliers what incentives would persuade them to travel from Daytona Beach, records show.

The strike force wants to survey 400 to 450 people in Volusia and Flagler counties and about the same number of people in Lake and Seminole counties.

The cost of the survey will depend on the number of people called and the time it takes to conduct each survey, Coughlin said. The survey should have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, she said.

Daytona Beach International has lost business in recent years to the much larger Orlando International, an hour's drive. In 1996, Daytona Beach handled 800,000 passengers to Orlando's 25.5 million.

With the departure of US Airways, Daytona Beach was left with only two airlines, Delta and Continental. Volusia officials said the lack of competition could push travelers to Orlando, which offers cheaper fares and more nonstop flights.

Four carriers have submitted proposals to the Daytona Beach strike force outlining plans for service between Daytona Beach and various cities in the Northeast and Midwest.

A strike force subcommittee is expected to report on the proposals next month, Mirabal said.